


paths

by archaeologies



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom, Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Bad end, Implied Child Death, and well, descriptions of burning, hmmm, i say character death but its kind of, i wanted to share it !!, like every other end i guess, my tyze entry!!!!, spoilers for the true end of 999
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7131332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaeologies/pseuds/archaeologies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The knowledge that someone else is going to be able to stop it doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paths

**Author's Note:**

> for tyze ! 
> 
> (should appear on pages 74/75 from the look of the preview !)

**i**

Akane Kurashiki’s world comes crashing down around her in nine boxes of nine boxes, and Jumpy cannot hear her cry. He hasn’t been able to hear her for a while. Her throat is raw and ruined by the sheer amount of screaming she’s tasking it with. Her hands are sticky with sweat, and when she finally decides to slam her stubby fingers onto the stubborn keys of the machine in a last minute attempt to find the solution and get herself out, they slide off and cover it in a layer of grease. 

She can’t stop crying. 

Her hands root themselves in her hair, and she sinks to her knees, sobbing. She closes her eyes. In the darkness, she feels someone else’s future, someone else’s past, someone else’s present, push down on the edges of her mind. Sometimes it comes clearly, strongly, and other times it fades and flickers, a dying candle withering into the night. She finds herself whispering his name, a silent urgency in the movements of her mouth. She tries to remember his present, their future. She tries to cling onto it, to pull it back to her, but she doesn’t know how. It was natural before. She has no idea how she did it. She doesn’t understand why she can’t do it now. 

The heat of her panic is cooled by an icy terror that creeps out of her thoughts and slides down her spine until her toes are curling with a freezing fear. Her eyes shoot open, but that doesn’t stop the memories of all the ways Jumpy could have been hurt, of all the people who wanted to hurt him. Her hands find the hem of her skirt and she plays with the fabric, shaking her head. Akane flares up with a warm, protective feeling, an almost animalistic need to keep Jumpy safe. She shivers, despite the fire in her bones, as some part of her takes responsibility for his pain, for his hurt, for putting him in danger. Or rather, some part of her will take responsibility, when she actually does it. 

A lump fills her throat as she stands on shaky legs and comes to terms with the fact that she might not be an Akane who will ever be able to take responsibility, that she might not be an Akane who puts anyone in that position, that she might not be an Akane who saves herself, let alone anyone else. She backs into the cold, metal machine. Her knees are trembling wisps of flesh, limp bones and loose muscle. They should not support her weight. Hands clamp tightly around her mouth - her own hands, her own tiny, sweaty hands. They smell like summer; long days, pink skies, warm breezes in June that tickle her nose and her eyes and make her blink salty tears to cool down. 

She’ll never see days like those again. She’ll never see any days again. 

Akane Kurashiki doesn’t understand why this is happening, or what it really is, but she knows she will. She knows another version of her will. She feels strangely detached from herself, like her mind is outside her body, like it’s resting its hands on her shoulders and chilling her blood with its touch, as she attempts to come to terms with the fact that she is just another Akane’s vision, another Akane’s glimpse at a bad end, something another Akane is going to try and avoid.

The knowledge that someone else is going to be able to stop it doesn’t make the fact that it’s happening any easier, and it doesn’t make it stop happening. She hugs herself tightly, eyes the machine once more, and thinks about making one final attempt. One last escape. 

A metallic echo rings through the room and she realises that she found her resolve far too late. There’s nothing she can do but let herself be seared, roasted, incinerated. Her brother is still pounding on the door. At least, she thinks he is; that steady beat could be her own heart thumping in her eardrums. 

She swallows, bracing herself. The fact that she knows eventually someone will change this doesn’t make her anguish any less. 

 

**0**

Akane Kurashiki’s world comes crashing down around her in the space between her thoughts. It comes in ghostly hands that grab her fragile wrists and jerk her around, flinging her to the ground. It comes in flashes of heat that char her bones and melt her from the inside. It comes in sudden, rasping breaths, when her lungs clog with smoke and her throat crisps in on itself, a tunnel of corroded muscle collapsing and closing her off from the dirty air. It comes when she is alone, it comes when she is surrounded, it comes in dribs and drabs of other people’s memories, other people’s realities, other people’s past and present. 

She has lived a thousand lives, and she will keep on living them until her work is done. The fact that she survived in this timeline doesn’t mean she can forget all the ones where she didn’t. 

**Author's Note:**

> it's ironic to think that a series named zero escape would go on to become my only escape, that i would both lose and find myself in the characters. i started playing 999 at a very difficult part of my life, and it helped me come to terms with a lot of things about myself that i'd never wanted to. seeing beautifully written characters with their own agendas and their own definitions of right and wrong, presented in a way that meant sometimes they were right and other times they were wrong, helped me allow myself to be sometimes right and sometimes wrong. the way the games present morality, and the idea of being good or bad, helped me come to terms with the fact that i did not have to be entirely good or bad. zero escape allowed me to come to terms with my own morality, with my own future, and allowed me to grow in ways i'd been too scared to let myself grow before. i'm both terrified for the things i'll learn about myself playing zero time dilemma and ecstatic to finally be able to finish this series, but most of all, i'm delighted that the series means so much to so many people, and that it's helped them in so many ways, and that i have a chance to give back to everyone who helped make zero escape what it is, and say thank you for sharing something this wonderful with me.


End file.
